Its happened again, I've just heard yet another very well-meaning person, choosing as solace, a piece of music that covers-up more than it can ever hope solve, despite it also having the best intentions at the heart of it. This is 'Redemption Song' by Bob Marley, one of the last recorded works of his exceptional career.
"Old pirates yes they rob I
Sold I to the merchant ships
Minutes after they took I from the
Bottom less pit
But my hand was made strong
By the hand of the almighty
We forward in this generation triumphantly
All I ever had is songs of freedom
Won't you help to sing these songs of freedom
Cause all I ever had redemption songs, redemption songs
Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery
None but ourselves can free our minds
Have no fear for atomic energy
Cause none of them can stop the time
How long shall they kill our prophets
While we stand aside and look
Some say it's just a part of it
We've got to fulfill the book
Won't you help to sing, these songs of freedom
Cause all I ever had, redemption songs, redemption songs, redemption songs
Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery
None but ourselves can free our minds
Have no fear for atomic energy
Cause none of them can stop the time
How long shall they kill our prophets
While we stand aside and look
Yes some say it's just part of it
We've got to fulfill the book
Won't you help to sing, these songs of freedom
Cause all I ever had, redemption songs
All I ever had, redemption songs
These songs of freedom, songs of freedom"
I'm sad that this is the one Bob Marley song that is the most commonly cited favourite of his work amongst POWC. Some white people have jumped on this piece out of all his other words, as they presume that it absolves them of their complicity — Well, they'd like to think it is, but it is no such thing:
Perhaps one sentiment, such as this granting of our absolution IS possible, but it has to be remembered that these lyrics could also be read as some of the most bitter and accusatory that we will hear: This is something that we have to hear, and meditate on, yes . . . but that we (the oppressors), have earned this one person's forgiveness from all the way back in 1979 I find to be too neat and tidy, and the whitey-we conveniently presume this one man has been appointed by the generations-of-slavery to forgive us; the mini-me mighty-whitey-we for our destructiveness— A lot's happened since then, but nothing's changed, and looks like we've been let off the hook, for our shame. Behind Marley, it feels like there's a vested-interest who's holding this valuable witness to ransom.
I can't bear hearing this song, because it reminds me of the Liberals I knew who hadn't/haven't a clue quite how painful, ever-present, and current racism still is. I've watched them aghast when at the end of a crappy party of white pople (god forbid there was black gatecrasher) when they would ritualistically put that "Choon" on (to signal end of the night), and with their drunken smiles and half-closed eyes, wanting to think 'the struggle' is over, and all that just by hearing his weary voice singing those great words.
"See you Dahling, I hope you don't have any trouble on the way back home, the streets are dreadfully dark!!"
Mainly I can't bear hearing that song, because it isn't even Bob Marley anymore: How typical for white fans to select this naked and unplugged recording —its like a man stripped bare for inspection at market— rather than his groundbreaking work with the Wailers who perfected a Brand New Genre that demonstrates their command, sophistication, and facility with electricity: what had made this modern man such a hero and icon has been taken away from him, and this song is more like the supplication, or the final plea, of the captive: its about as close to banging out a pattern on the bars — how ironic that is:
Picture . . .
it sounds like this recording came without his friends who he transformed music with; it is like a piece of performance art — almost like a confession written by the torturer; it is also emphasised by the fact he appears alone, and ON OUR OWN WHITE TERMS of the 'fear of syncopation' and using as much of our style of language as he could bear to utter, not his; and confined like the prisoner he is singing about, he has again been separated from the energy of his own identity, before we (the unmusical) can bear him to forgive us...
Was it was naive of Marley to think that his words would not be interpreted in any other way?
It is said that "We enter the world alone and with nothing, and we leave the world alone and with nothing".
Stick this in your Memes and smoke it!
Sunday, October 22, 2006
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5 comments:
Hello eleanor, my favourites are the of the "So Jah Seh" and "Sun Is Shining" variety, the one's before Chris Blackwell manged to sign them.
"See you Dahling, I hope you don't have any trouble on the way back home, the streets are dreadfully dark!!"
How ironic. They use the word "dark" for danger, yet they find solace in a such a song.
In the late 80's in Texas Ragae was all the fad. I never did get to any event where it was featured. I hate to sound like I have the moralist like alarm or sensory, but I never felt right about it. I had no clue about Ragae and did not think I had a right to intrude upon it until I learned a little more. Something I still have not done yet. I had a very good friend that was Jamaican/Chinese. I'm not sure if her mom or day was Chinese, because I only know her American married name. She introduced me to Champagne cola and beef patties. I never would do the pig tails and peas though, or the curry goat. Yet she was so whitewashed, so Americanized, so materialized, it got worse as we grew older. She left her black AMerican husband and two children for a WHITE American doctor, who ironically left his Mexican-AMerican wife and three children. Last I heard they were living in a vicious cycle of him kicking her ass something awful, like Emergency room awful, and she taking him back when he brings a diamond ring, flowers, and a big I'm sorry. We got in a nasty fight when she told me that we (me and her sisters) should get her attention because she is the victim in all of this. Sigh.
Sorry.
Should I buy some Bob Marley?
Only buy it that if you if you have to!! But beware of any white person who goes into raptures about that song; not that its bad, but it reveals someone who got to a certain place and then just stopped.
I suppose you had be growing up in "Inglan" in the seventies, or growing up next to people who are in mourning for a beautiful, poor, and violent island. Just like eating curry goat, it ought to be eaten in context.
Really early Marley (1965-71) excites me more than the more polished, but he wouldn't be as popular as he is if it wasn't for the calculated move to clean up production values in the mid-seventies, making it more understandable to university dorm-life.
Thanks for writing!
I, of course, like reggae but you are quite right about the white appeal and the university dorm values.
You're posting again - very cool!
Am I Obeah?
Perhaps I Absorbed some of the magic.
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